124 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Page after page might be filled with notes on the administration of nitrate and of chlorate 

 of potash, iodide of potassium, quinine, salts of iron, sesquicarbonate of ammonia, Epsom 

 or Glauber s salts, sulphur, ginger, calomel, soap, and oil ; and even guano from the 

 goose cote has been said &quot;frequently to effect a cure, given in doses of one quart, until a 

 thorough evacuation is produced.&quot; A reporter from Woodson County, Kansas, says this 

 is &quot;a sovereign and unfailing remedy for the dry murrain.&quot; None of these agents (and 

 some have been extolled as specific) have affected the steady progress and fatality of the 

 disease. 



Shelter, protection from flies, linseed or flaxseed tea, friction of the limbs, and injec 

 tions, are humane, and, to a trifling extent, useful expedients. I have seen cows return to 

 nearly their full quantity of milk on such treatment, with the aid of half-ounce doses of 

 sulphuric ether, in four ounces of the solution of the acetate of ammonia and a quart of 

 water, given thrice daily. Relief has been afforded by giving an ounce of tincture of 

 opium for the first day or two ; but to enter further into the history of experiments on this 

 point is to recount a history of failures such as the world is accustomed to, in speaking of 

 the medical treatment of human cholera and small-pox, or rinderpest and the deadly forms 

 of anthrax in cattle. 



THE PREVENTION OP SPLENIC FEVER. 



The main object of the investigation which has brought to light the facts noted in 

 the foregoing pages, has been the discovery of means whereby the direct and the indirect 

 losses sustained for several years past, but especially in 1868, may not again harass Amer 

 ican farmers, and injure the traders in Texan cattle. Hitherto the only measures sug 

 gested, and very partially adopted, have consisted either in prohibiting the importation of 

 southern cattle into certain States, or portions of States; and, in one instance, in prevent 

 ing their introduction only during the summer months. 



Stringent laws have failed to avert the most disastrous and wide-spread losses; and 

 while on the one hand persons interested in the Texan trade have justified their inattention 

 to legal restrictions by declaring them one and all unconstitutional, instances have not 

 been wanting of mob law adopting its own expedients. Dealers and farmers who owned 

 southern cattle have been threatened they have been pounced on in the dead of night, 

 that they might surely be found in their homes and there and then they have been 

 requested to attend meetings of indignant and impoverished neighbors. Lastly, the stam 

 peding and shooting of Texan cattle, whenever and wherever they might be seen, have 

 been the mild alternatives which seem to have satisfied a thirst for revenge ; or, in some 

 instances, human life would, in all probability, have been sacrificed. Indeed, threats have 

 been numerous, and heavy bonds or the actual payment of cash for dead, dying, and 

 infected stock, have alone saved the persons of traders, commission agents, and farmers, 

 who happened to have any dealings in long-horned beeves. The prevention of splenic 

 fever, therefore, implies, in many instances, the prevention of lawlessness and the preserva 

 tion of the public peace. 



We have seen that splenic fever is a malady indigenous to Texas. It is there an 

 enzootic, and whatever may be the plant or plants inducing the disorder, it is indisputable 

 that the conditions exist there which are. rife in all parts of the world where enzootic 



